Data interpretation training for agriculture officers

Bhubaneswar: To strengthen the involvement of officers from the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment (A&FE) and other stakeholders in agricultural policy-making and sectoral planning, the second phase of a capacity-building training on ‘Data Interpretation and Economic Impact Analysis’ was jointly organised by the department and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) here.

The two-day training programme was inaugurated by the department’s additional secretary Subhransu Mishra.

“The use of data for planning and evaluation has already started yielding tangible results in Odisha’s agriculture sector, and such training is very important for sustaining this momentum,” Mishra said. Agriculture deputy director Sangram Keshari Patnaik and assistant director Nagan Kumar Mallick also participated in the training and said that strengthening internal data capacity is very important to promote innovation, accountability and responsiveness in service delivery to farmers.

The session was attended by around fifty participants, including representatives from leading organisations like PRADAN, Samagra, ACCESS Development Services, Centre for Sustainable Markets, WASSAN, Niruthi and the Indian School of Business (ISB).

The second phase of the training shared concepts in data analysis, visualisation and agricultural policy evaluation using datasets like NSSO, Census of Agriculture, and PLFS and tools like Excel, STATA, R, and Python, and their practical applications.

The training, led by experts from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), said, “The programme was not just about conceptual clarity but also encouraged the officials to apply what they have learned in their own fields.”

PNN

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